Angels watching over you
by renrenren3
Summary: It starts with Dean drawing the long straw and ends with him sharing a bed with a grumpy angel. Dean is none too pleased by this turn of events.


It starts with Dean drawing the long straw, which under normal circumstances would have been a lucky event. Of course, the universe has a twisted sense of humor when it comes to the Winchester brothers.

The long straw means that Sam is the one who has to stay behind and deal with the aftermath of the ghoul attacks in Pennsylvania, which includes burying several months-old corpses and convincing the FBI agents (the real ones) that there's no reason to investigate the recent arson cases.

Dean gets the slightly more enviable task of driving eight hundred miles to St Louis for their next job. Lately they had to split up and work alone more often than not, what with all the crazy-ass monsters popping out of nowhere. Monsters which, Dean thinks morosely, never take the evening off.

So he gets a room and eats his burger and chips while poring over the case files. He almost misses Sam's chatter, and how his little brother would complain about his choice of dinner if he was here. Not that he's lonely, but... All right, maybe he's just a tiny bit lonely. That's probably why he calls Castiel.

Later, Dean will say that he called Castiel because the angel could have some information on his case. Which doesn't involve angels or demons or anything biblical at all, but you never know. Castiel does have several thousand years' worth of angelic wisdom, or whatever.

Castiel appears a few inches in front of Dean as soon as his name is spoken. He also knows which monster has been abducting and killing all those people, and it turns out that the trunk of the Impala already has everything needed to kill the sucker.

Everything's going too well. Castiel even volunteered to help with the monster-slaying and Dean had to tell him only three times that they're going to wait until tomorrow because he driven for twelve hours today and is about to fall asleep on his feet. All in all, Dean's feeling pretty lucky tonight, which of course means that something terrible is about to happen.

"Good night, Cas," Dean says, tossing himself on the bed still fully clothed and closing his eyes.

"Good night, Dean," Castiel replies in his usual inscrutable tone. There's a minute of silence in which Dean tries to fall asleep. He should have fallen asleep the moment he touched the bed, damn it, he's that tired, but he's got this uneasy feeling in his chest.

The room is silent. Dean cracks one eye open. "Cas," he sighs. As it turns out, there is at least one angel watching over him. Dean is not happy in the least.

"Yes, Dean?" the angel asks, staring at him from the foot of his bed.

Dean would have rolled his eyes, but that would have required too much effort. He's already trying not to yawn as he talks. "Quit staring at me, man, it's fucking creepy," he says.

"Sorry," Castiel says, and he turns around so that he's staring at the wall instead.

Dean swears under his breath. He's pretty sure that Castiel's scowl deepens at those words, though it's hard to tell since the angel's face is permanently set on frowning.

"Cas," he says again. "Are you going to just stand there all night?"

"Yes," Castiel replies in a matter-of-fact tone. Dean just stares back. "Or I could go stand in the corridor," the angel adds, with only a slight hesitation.

For a moment, Dean seriously considers the idea. However it's a given that he'd be woken up in the middle of the night, because having a trenchcoat-wearing angel standing guard outside his motel door is bound to attract some kind of trouble.

"I know I'll regret this," he says under his breath. Then he props himself up on an elbow and draws back the blanket. "Get in," he tells Castiel.

The angel just stares. "I do not require sleep," he says eventually.

"Yeah, but I do," Dean replies. "I can't sleep if you keep standing around. Come on, pretend to be a normal person, just this once. And take off your shoes," he adds.

Castiel gives him a long-suffering look that conveys the idea that he, Castiel, is unwillingly submitting to human customs even though he can't fathom what good might come out of this. Dean counts it as a small victory when Castiel takes off his trenchcoat and carefully hangs it on the back of a chair.

"Good night," Dean says again once Castiel is in bed, and then proceeds to spend the next twenty minutes not falling asleep.

Dean has slept in far worse circumstances. The bed is king size and large enough for the two of them. Castiel isn't even the kind of person who tosses around in his sleep or kicks or invades Dean's half of the bed. He just lays on his bed staring at the ceiling, which is actually the whole fucking problem.

"Can't you at least close your eyes?" Dean asks.

"Sorry," Castiel says sheepishly, and he complies. He's probably still not sleeping.

Hell, of course he's not sleeping, Dean knows that. But he looks a lot like he's sleeping, and in the half-light coming from the lampposts outside the window it's hard to see his frown. Dean thinks that right now Castiel looks deceptively human.

"Dean," Castiel says after a while, without opening his eyes. "Now you are staring at me. I don't mind, but I was wondering: why?"

Startled, Dean turns around and buries his face in the pillow. "Nothing," he says. "Go to sleep. Or keep pretending to sleep. Good night."

"Good night, Dean," Castiel replies.

Then, thankfully, Dean falls asleep.


End file.
